The following article about the Saturday, August 14, 1993, Barnes family reunion appeared in the Jackson [Michigan] Citizen Patriot newspaper the following Monday, August 16.

150 and going

Barnes family celebrates longevity with reunion

By Linda Tien
Special Writer

As about 40 family members laughed and talked over fried chicken and potato salad, a photocopied marriage license displayed on a nearby counter certified the union that brought them all together in the first place.

David Barnes and Mary Hood were married in 1860 and settled in Horton. Many of their descendants still live in Jackson County, and every summer for about the past 70 years, a group of them have gathered for the Barnes family reunion.

"Most of us settled in this area, so it makes it easier to get together for reunions," said Helen Barnes Leggett, 90, of Horton, the granddaughter of David and Mary Barnes.

David Barnes died before Leggett was born, but she does remember her grandmother. Leggett was 12 years old when Mary Barnes died.

Also attending the reunion at Tompkins Township Hall was Leggett's sister, Jennie Barnes Paige, 85, of Jackson. As the two oldest family members on hand, the two were the unofficial historians of the day.

"Back in Mary's day, the women had one good black or navy dress," said Paige, "They wore it to funerals and weddings and they were buried in it."

Some of the family's history is retained in the memoirs of Will Barnes, the father of Paige and Leggett. Over the years he kept family stories alive by relating them at family gatherings. His daughters convinced him to write them down before his death in1946.

The history of the Barnes family in Jackson County actually goes back 150 years to Oct. 24, 1843, when Thomas and Sarah Barnes and their seven children came to the area from Seneca Falls, N.Y. One of those children was David Barnes, who was born in 1826.

David Barnes first married a woman named Arvilla, and the couple had a son and a daughter. Later, Arvilla and the boy died during an epidemic. David Barnes then married Mary Hood of Moscow.

During Saturday's reunion, family members browsed through boxes of old photographs, newspaper clippings, postcards and letters relating to the family.

In a genealogy published in 1976 by Jennie Paige's son, Charles W. Paige of Pasadena, Calif., facts about the Barnes family were noted. For example, Mary's twin brothers James Jr. Hood and William Hood both served in the Civil War.

Paige also notes that a few years after his marriage to Mary Hood, David Barnes worked as a keeper at the original State Prison of Southern Michigan and owned one of the houses that once lined the street next to the prison wall between Ganson and North streets.

Back row L>R: Tom, Will Mart, Fred

Front row L>R: Mary, David, Jen, David, Jr. “June”

Last modified: Tuesday June 12, 2007